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Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Promoting and Marketing

My publisher does a handful of things to help me promote my book. I have a press release, a few interviews on their sites and a four or five stop mini tour leading up to release day. But as a small publisher what else can I really expect them to do when they have several other authors to promote as well?As an author I have to step up and take control of my book promoting- they get me started and I keep me going.

Promoting isn't a one day job on release day and the it's over.

No you will be marketing and promoting your books for the rest of your life if you want to make any sales from it. Does that mean you have to go out there and blast 'hey check out my book' every hour or something? No.

It does mean though you should be engaging people, doing interviews, requesting that book reviewers review your book. Book reviews are very essential to your book and while you may not want to slam people with a bunch of 'look at my book' or 'buy my book' links, at least if you are requesting a review every week from a different blog or book reader, then you are continually doing something that promotes and markets your book.

Personally, I do one thing every day to promote my book. I might tweet about it going on sale one day and the next I share my favorite line from the book on facebook.

Or I might share an excerpt, or a picture that relates to my book somehow that way I'm keeping myself out there indirectly.

Other days I might post something a reviewer said. But it all boils down to you. You have to find what works for you.

The one thing you should not do- is expect your publisher to always be promoting your book, or that just because you marketed for release day it will continue to sell while you go do something else.Be active with your audience.Give them a reason to come find your work.

This post is part of the Topic Tuesday group. You can find more on this topic by clicking the picture below.

7 comments:

You have some really great advice here.Thank you for sharing it. I love that little picture of the doggie reaching up to the tip of the pen. Learning more about marketing and how to advertise my work without being pushy about it is one of my goals this year. I like your strategy of doing one thing per day to market your books. I'm going to try and do the same :-)

Smart advice. I've been fortunate my publisher continues to promote my books and I'm working with them on more ideas. I've been doing online interviews and guest spots for four months, but I need to keep doing more.

This is a very good, creative and informative perspective. Great ideas to keep yourself present without being pushy, which can alienate readers and followers. Thanks for sharing...definiteky have to save this one for future review!